Elan Morgan tagged me in an old-school meme project to share five random things about myself. Interestingly (randomly?), she also tagged Vikki, at whose dining room table in Minneapolis I am currently blogging. It’s like duelling bloggers around here: me coming up with five random facts about myself downstairs while Vikki comes up with five facts of her own upstairs in her office. That’s how we roll. (Elan also tagged, for the record, Suebob, Alexis Hinde, and Eden Riley.)

Without further ado:

1.My undergraduate and master’s English degrees both focused on African-American slave and post-emancipation literature. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and my MA thesis on “passing” — the complicated phenomenon (and I won’t do it justice here) of black people passing for white and vice versa, as well as queer people passing for straight, etc. I was so consumed by that literature, by thinking through and analyzing those texts for patterns, trying to make meaning of it all. And while I imagine that all that thinking has shaped the way I look at life today, that period of intense academic analysis now seems so far away.

2.When I was about six, my parents took what I believe was their first-ever holiday without children. They went to Aruba, and my father’s mother stayed with me and my brother, in the spare room. While my parents were gone, their bed caught on fire. A frayed wire from my father’s clock radio sparked on their metal bed frame, and that spark caught their bedspread, and — flames. I remember being woken up by my brother yelling “Fire!” I remember the smoke billowing out of my parents’ bedroom. I remember witnessing that smoke, and then going back into my own bedroom and getting back into bed. To this day, I can’t quite decide if this story is one of immeasurably good luck or of immeasurably bad luck.

3.I used to teach yoga.

4.I am missing a tooth. My right adult eyetooth just never materialized. Since I was 12, I’ve had a series of more and less successful prosthetic teeth and bridges. Occasionally, a bridge has come loose and I have had to spend the weeks or days before I can get to the dentist holding my tooth in place with my tongue. Sometimes, this results in hilarity.

5.I assign personalities and memories to inanimate objects and unrelated moments. The colour of paint in Isaac’s room reminds me, every time, of an otherwise insignificant friendship I had in grad school. At a certain point in a exercise class in the gym, I always think of a certain client. Related, I used to imagine that that dust motes dancing through sunlight were fairies. I used to think that I must be the only person who experienced the world in this way, but now I imagine that most people do. That's both comforting and kind of disappointing.